Bandwagon
Yes, I've jumped on the bandwagon for those books.
I have at long last committed myself to reading and FINISHING the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter. My real-life friend (and lapsed blogger) LC recommended it to me several years ago, but at the time I felt unable to follow the books to completion. Last year, Dorian reviewed it for the Tiber Review program. Then this summer I immediately loaded it onto my new Kindle, though I still did not get around to beginning it until late August. I am nearly finished and ready to join the legions of Kristin fans. Once you cross the threshold of those first 1000 pages, you are surely about to be a fan.
Among my favorite reading this year have been two works that both take place in the Middle Ages, Kristin and Shieldwall. The Kristin trilogy has long since been published in entirety, so I have the satisfaction of reading the whole collection to completion. Shieldwall is only the first installment, so I have to wait (and wait and wait) for the next book, likely titled Hastings.
Randy is also just now picking up Kristin, having read (and re-read) all of the Song of Ice and Fire novels available. I'm curious if he will like it. Are there men who are fans of Kristin?
I cannot overlook, too, the heavy presence of Christianity, particularly as it was practiced and expressed in Medieval Norway before the Reformation. I felt in many ways it added to the story a realistic dimension, but I wonder if people who aren't Catholic find it an obstacle to enjoying the book. Obviously, the Nobel Prize committee did not find Sigrid Undset's body of work more religious than artful, but I wonder if there are, today, non-Catholic fans of Kristin.
"I've never realized this until now! Do you hate me, Simon?" he whispered, overwhelmed.
"Don't you think I have reason to do so?....I can't bear to see you anymore," said Simon.
"But that was twenty years ago, man!" exclaimed Erlend, overcome and confused.Obviously, I'm not talking about Fifty Shades of Grey. But can those Fifty Shades books deliver this moment, and everything that led up to it? In the ellipses I've expurgated long details about the men's postures, and their horses, in order just to capture just dialogue. And there's a whole paragraph that follows, describing how these two men look at each other, before you get Erlend's admission about the woman they are discussing, his wife who is also Simon's former betrothed (and now sister-in-law), "Yes, yes, I do. May God bless her!"
"Yes. But don't you think she's...worth thinking about for twenty years?"
I have at long last committed myself to reading and FINISHING the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter. My real-life friend (and lapsed blogger) LC recommended it to me several years ago, but at the time I felt unable to follow the books to completion. Last year, Dorian reviewed it for the Tiber Review program. Then this summer I immediately loaded it onto my new Kindle, though I still did not get around to beginning it until late August. I am nearly finished and ready to join the legions of Kristin fans. Once you cross the threshold of those first 1000 pages, you are surely about to be a fan.
Among my favorite reading this year have been two works that both take place in the Middle Ages, Kristin and Shieldwall. The Kristin trilogy has long since been published in entirety, so I have the satisfaction of reading the whole collection to completion. Shieldwall is only the first installment, so I have to wait (and wait and wait) for the next book, likely titled Hastings.
Randy is also just now picking up Kristin, having read (and re-read) all of the Song of Ice and Fire novels available. I'm curious if he will like it. Are there men who are fans of Kristin?
I cannot overlook, too, the heavy presence of Christianity, particularly as it was practiced and expressed in Medieval Norway before the Reformation. I felt in many ways it added to the story a realistic dimension, but I wonder if people who aren't Catholic find it an obstacle to enjoying the book. Obviously, the Nobel Prize committee did not find Sigrid Undset's body of work more religious than artful, but I wonder if there are, today, non-Catholic fans of Kristin.
Comments
Perhaps the centrality of the heroine and the relational themes explain why it seems to have more of a following with women. Really, its a masterpiece on so many levels that there is much to appreciate for anyone who is willing to take on the length of it.
I do imagine that being Catholic makes it easier to feel close to these characters. I love to think that we have the same faith they do so many hundreds of years later.
Do you know that Unset based Jorungard on an excavated farmstead, and that this is now maintained as a Kristin Lavransdatter museum of sorts? I found out because the woman who runs it (or ran it then anyway) was the older sister of a girl with Down's Syndrome whose disability case I was doing a review on. The elderly parents were so upset by the review that she had to come home from Norway to handle the paperwork. I found out all this while talking to her on the phone about her sister's case. This is one of the places I would like to go if I ever get to go to Europe.
Susan Peterson
I had seen there is an actual place that acts as a Jorungard in Norway. After our bit of literary tourism this summer, I've been thinking about how to manage others. Late one night I was looking into what there might be in Norway.